Thursday, July 17, 2008

Offend a homosexual ... Go to prison for 5 years

Teachers, pastors facing 'criminalization of homophobia'

Christians will face prison for speaking out against homosexuality if Brazil's Senate passes a bill approved unanimously by its House of Representatives.

The measure is considered the country's newest attempt to promote homosexuality, disguised as an act to combat discrimination, the Catholic News Agency reports.

If anyone prevents actions of "homosexual affection" in public or private locations open to the public, they could face up to five years in prison for doing so, the Association of the Defense of Life reports.

The bill also seeks to penalize private and public school administrators with up to three years in prison if they refuse to hire openly "gay" teachers.

According to the CNA, the measure will force prison time for any "moral, ethical, philosophical or psychological expression that questions homosexual practices."

The ADL claims the bill could spell disaster for churches and teachers.

"[A] priest, a pastor, a teacher or even an average citizen who says in a sermon, a classroom or public conversation that homosexual acts are sinful, disordered or an illness could be denounced and detained," the association said.

Only weeks ago, WND reported the president of Brazil said "opposing" homosexuality makes you a sick person, and he believes such thoughts need to be criminalized.

Brazilian chief Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who won a narrow re-election following a cash-for-votes scandals, held the First National Conference of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals to condemn the biblical belief that homosexuality is wrong.

Lula, on June 5, not only officially opened the event to promote homosexuality across his nation but also issued a presidential sanction for the conference.

Calling for "the criminalization of homophobia," he said opposition to homosexuality is "perhaps the most perverse disease impregnated in the human head."

He said "prejudiced" people need to "open their minds and clean them." Other speakers encouraged homosexuals to claim to be part of a civil rights campaign that already has brought reforms for treatment of blacks, the elderly and the disabled. They also announced the nation's public hospitals soon would begin to perform sex changes on people.